1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of wireless communication devices and more particularly to wireless communication devices and methods for communicating text messages using network and non-network communication modes.
2. Description of the Related Art
For many years, businesses have utilized text messaging to communicate with their employees who are not always present at a particular location. Such businesses include, for example, service companies having service technicians who provide installation or repair services for a customer at one location and then move on to another location to provide installation or repair services to another customer at another location. By equipping their service technicians with text messaging communication devices (e.g., text-enabled pagers) and by having their dispatchers communicate text messages with their service technicians, such service companies have been able to track the progress of service calls and to direct service technicians to their next service calls.
Today, text messaging has become an increasingly popular method of communication as businesses and individuals have realized that text messaging not only allows communication with persons who are not always present at a particular location, but also enables communication with such persons in a way that is not disruptive to others in the proximity of such persons. Therefore, text messaging may be used, for example, to communicate messages to persons who are present in meetings or at presentations without disrupting the meetings or presentations. As a consequence, text messaging is often used today for communication between persons who may be in the same building, on the same floor of a building, or even within thirty (30) feet of each other.
Most text messages are communicated from the text messaging devices of senders to the text messaging devices of respective receivers via the messaging communication networks of communication carriers. When the senders and receivers are separated by a substantial distance, the use of the messaging communication networks is necessary. However, when the senders and receivers are not separated by a substantial distance and are, instead, in relative close proximity, the use of messaging communication networks for communicating text messages between such senders and receivers consumes valuable and expensive communication network resources that might otherwise be used for communicating text messages between senders and receivers who are separated by substantial distances. Further, such use of messaging communication networks for communicating text messages between senders and receivers in relative close proximity may reduce communication carrier revenues if some of the network resources consumed for communicating such text messages are also used by the communication carrier to provide higher revenue generating wireless voice communication services.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for apparatuses and methods for communicating text messages that use a messaging communication network to communicate text messages if respective senders and receivers are separated by a substantial distance and that do not use a messaging communication network to communicate text messages if respective senders and receivers are in relative close proximity, and that address these and other problems, deficiencies, and shortcomings of the industry.